


Sherlock Gets Naked ("It's for a case, John!")

by wendymarlowe



Series: John and Sherlock's Kinky First Times [41]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Casefic (kinda), Crossdressing, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 13:54:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymarlowe/pseuds/wendymarlowe
Summary: John hesitated. “You realize asking me to strip you naked and haul you off to a dirty alley isn’t generally a thing flatmates OR friends do, right?”Sherlock’s eyes locked onto his. “Yes,” he said quietly. “So it’s a good thing we’re more than either of those descriptors.”(Part of my "John and Sherlock's Kinky First Times" series of shorts, all revolving around the same basic theme of "John and Sherlock get sexy for the first time and also discover some kinky stuff about each other.")





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: contains some, if not actual transphobia, then at least trans-ignorance. Not from Sherlock or John.

The victim was completely nude, lying face-up in the filthy alley. Sherlock approached and crouched less than a foot away, bending practically double to examine at every possible angle. John had to give him a bit more room, given the narrowness of the alleyway, but he tried to peer over Sherlock’s shoulder as best he could.

“Freak’s here,” Anderson grumbled from behind them, where the rest of the team were milling. “Going to tell us the bloke was stabbed, I suspect.”

“You’re only half right.” Sherlock stood and twisted sideways, waving John closer. “Which you’d have noticed earlier, if you’d have bothered to observe. John, take a look.”

He did. The knife wound was terribly obvious, but there was something odd about it. Smallish wound, considering… the angle was off, maybe? John ignored it for the time being and tried to picture himself in Sherlock’s head (not that anyone except Sherlock could _actually_ work that great bloody brain of his, but sometimes it helped to pretend). He sat back and looked over the body as a whole. Which was… naked. _Yeah, not going to say that one out loud--no need to remind him how much smarter he is than the rest of us_.

_Right._ John put a pin in that observation and went back to looking at the evidence overall. The victim’s hair was short, oddly so, in an uneven mess which John had a hard time believing could have been an intentional style even before the struggle and the murder. Without touching or moving the body it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like there may have been a contusion on the back of the skull--not from hitting the pavement, obviously not here (not enough blood), but perimortem perhaps? Sherlock would probably know the distance the victim traveled from the primary scene, but John couldn’t say more than that this alley wasn’t it.

Lestrade cleared his throat, which he always did before having to break up Sherlock and Anderson’s verbal sparring matches. “Half right--you mean to say he wasn’t stabbed?” he asked. “Sherlock, there’s a great bloody hole in his chest!”

“Other half.” Sherlock placed a light hand on John’s shoulder and nudged him lower to get a closer look at the stab wound. Which did, indeed, have all indications of being from a smallish kitchen knife. “_SHE_ was indeed stabbed with a paring knife, a single thrust, but--”

“Sherlock.” Lestrade cleared his throat again. “I know you don’t think much of my team, but most of them _have_ had sex ed at some point. It’s all kind of… hanging out there. Pretty obviously a bloke.” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and pointed. “Nails--look at them. French manicure, subtle, professionally done and not cheap. Also not temporary. Musculature in her calves shows she wore high heels regularly. Pierced ears, if you’d bothered to look. One hole each, very traditional. Discoloration line along her ribcage shows she was recently wearing a bra trimmed with lace. It irritated her skin, here and here. I expect you’ll find the same along the line of her hip.”

_Well damn._ John let out a long breath. He should have noticed the nails, at least--

“His prick’s _right there,_” Anderson countered.

“The nails are optional; the penis isn’t.” Sherlock whirled and glared at him. “She was transgender, yes, but there are no indications of surgical scars or hormonal therapy so she either didn’t want it or couldn’t afford it. Not all trans women do, you know. Possible she identified as nonbinary femme, but statistically she’s more likely to be a trans woman.”

“Great,” Anderson muttered. “Cross-dressing hooker, then?”

“Oi, Anderson. Shut up.” Lestrade massaged his temples and turned back to Sherlock. “Tell me what you’ve got. _Was _she a sex worker, then? I know that’s a stereotype, but transgenders are disproportionately over-represented in--”

“Office worker would be my guess,” Sherlock interrupted, “going by the state of her hands. Look, here and here--the calluses are from typing. Her nose has faint indentations from glasses, too. Probably only wore them when the monitor was giving her headaches. Nevertheless, the wound positioning does point to this being sex-related, at least tangentially. Send me close-ups of the back of her head and details of any particulates once you’ve had someone other than Anderson collect them. Come on, John--I need to run an experiment.” He stood. “Oh, and Garrett? ‘Transgender’ is an adjective, not a noun. You might offend someone.”

Anderson guffawed. “_He_ might offend somebody?”

It wasn’t the first time Sherlock had swanned off a scene with his Belstaff swirling around him before John had even said a single word, but somehow it never got any easier. John shot Lestrade an apologetic little smile and chased off after Sherlock.

*****

“You don’t think she was stabbed, then?”

Sherlock’s lips quirked up a bit at John’s use of the correct pronoun, and he settled back further into the seat of the taxi. “Surely you saw the upward angle of the wound,” he said. “She was already prone on the ground when the knife went in. Slowly--someone pressed, not jabbed. Worked their way between her ribs by feel rather than by luck. And since there was no evidence of her moving or trying to get away, obviously she was dead first.”

“The head contusion.”

Sherlock nodded. “I suspect it was unintentional, but without moving her body or viewing the actual scene of her death it’s difficult to determine whether the blow was the result of a true accident or whether it came about as part of an assault.”

“The killer cut her hair--badly--and left her naked to mislead us into thinking she was a cis man?”

“That’s the most likely explanation, yes. Meaning it was someone who knew her enough to feel remorse she died but not well enough to notice how much care she put into her nail polish. That was a fresh manicure.”

“Is that something Lestrade can have his people check? You don’t have a, what, nail salon index in that brain of yours?”

Sherlock gave him a look.

“Is that a no?”

“Polish, yes. Salon, no.” Sherlock frowned. “Much as I lament the stupidity of the Yard, Lestrade _does_ have some qualified lab technicians at his disposal. He’ll text me when more information about our mystery woman is available. If Anderson doesn’t muck up the data collection first, that is.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Not like you to pass on a chance to stomp all over the chain of evidence and collect samples yourself. Turning over a new leaf?”

“Merely eager to produce data of our own. Come on.” He hopped out of the cab the moment it slowed in front of 221B. John took a few extra minutes to chat with the cabbie while paying--the man turned out to be a reader of John’s blog--and made sure to properly lock the front door. By the time he got upstairs, Sherlock was banging around in the loo and talking loudly to himself.

“Just a moment,” he called. “Wait on the sofa. Oh! We’ll require tea. Tea, John!”

_Berk._ John definitely could use a good cuppa, so he put the kettle on and set about seeing what biscuits Sherlock hadn’t somehow contaminated. No surprise there--the TimTams were in pristine condition, because they were Sherlock’s favorites. The Jammie Dodgers looked like they had been gone over with a meat tenderizer. John dumped the remains onto the tea tray anyway, because fuck it, at least the filling held the crumbs together.

Ultimately it didn’t matter, because halfway to the sofa Sherlock emerged from the loo and the entire plate went tumbling from John’s grasp onto the floor.

“Did you just break all my TimTams?” Sherlock asked incredulously.

John blinked. “Are you wearing heels and a sundress?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“You’ve got--you’ve got _breasts._ And Christ, is that mascara?”

“Mascara, blush, plush matte lipstick in ‘Freckle Fiesta,’ as if that were an actual color, and a touch of neutral-tone eyeshadow. You could see the remains of it around the victim’s superior palpebral fold. I need to determine whether her killer wiped her makeup off her face or whether she did it herself sometime prior to her death.”

John nodded slowly. “And you needed high heels and tits to do that.”

“No, that’s to see if you can undress my corpse without leaving incriminating evidence.”

“Ah.” John licked his lips and willed himself to not explode at his--currently disturbingly feminine--flatmate. “I’ll just bring in the tea, then, shall I?”

They left the biscuits on the floor to be hoovered later and settled into their respective armchairs with tea. Sherlock seemed entirely at home sitting in a short dress with his hairy legs demurely crossed. He had perfect posture, which was a surprise since his skeletal makeup was usually an afterthought when it came to his relationship with furniture. John eyed him warily and finished his tea in silence.

“Finally,” Sherlock declared, setting down his own barely-touched cup. “Now. Impossible to say whether the victim and the killer were at her place or his, but given the probable paring knife and the alley where the body was found, they were almost certainly on the tail end of their date.”

“Why a date?”

Sherlock looked at him blankly. “The brassiere, John. The skin irritation. No woman wears itchy undergarments unless she intends to have someone else see them. Not only was the lace abrasive, but the band size was slightly too small for her chest so it cut more deeply. I suspect she has similar lace divots across her iliac crests, but the blood made it difficult to tell for sure. Matching bra and knickers, then. Not a first date, but still early enough she bothered to wear something she thought her date would find arousing.”

John blinked. “Ah, not to contradict you since you’re clearly an _expert_ on the fairer sex, but some women like wearing nice underthings because they just want to. Not to impress a man.”

“You wouldn’t know,” Sherlock said. “Every time you’ve seen a woman in her knickers there was a man present, obviously. You. Although it speaks well for your carnal prowess that they continued to attempt to entice you even after the first sexual encounter. Bravo.”

“I’d know a damn sight better than you,” John countered. “Exactly how many women have you undressed?”

Sherlock waived an airy hand. “Irrelevant. _Anyway._ She and her date did whatever simple-minded people do on dates--dinner and the cinema, perhaps. They came back to one or the other’s flat with the intention of sexual intercourse. The victim acquired the contusion on the back of her head, which might have been accidental or might have been intentional. Her date panicked.”

“And showed his remorse by stripping off her clothes and makeup, dragging her out to an alley naked, and stabbing her?”

“I have a theory. Well, two, but one frontrunner. First I need you to trip me.”

John eyed his flatmate’s wicked-looking stiletto heels. “I’m not going to A&E with one of those spikes through the top of my foot,” he declared. “And I’m not going to risk spraining your ankle when you fall. You’re bloody tall; your precious brain has a long way to go to reach the ground.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, then sauntered over to the desk and dramatically clocked his hip on the corner. John was on his feet and extending an arm in an instant, but Sherlock was already on the floor and rubbing his elbow.

“That was, perhaps, a bit less of a controlled fall than I intended,” he grumbled. “But fine, assume the contusion happened accidentally. It’s difficult to regain one’s balance in these shoes. I am now deceased, or will shortly bleed out.” He lay back onto the floor and assumed an awkward sprawl. “Head wounds bleed excessively, even when not fatal, so what do you do now?”

“I call 999 and attempt to staunch the flow until paramedics get here.”

“Ah, but I’m already dead, or as good as. And you know you’ll be the first to come under suspicion. Perhaps the fall wasn’t _entirely_ inadvertent. You shoved me, or tripped and knocked into me and sent me sprawling, or we were having a lovers’ spat and you lashed out. Or perhaps you don’t have a good history with law enforcement and know you won’t be taken seriously. However it happens, your date is now a cadaver.”

John was trying to keep his eyes on Sherlock’s face, but he couldn’t help but keep glancing down at where the short skirt of the sundress was riding high up Sherlock’s muscular thighs. The man barely had an ounce of fat on him, but what fat and muscle _were_ there were incredibly well-placed. The sight of those impossibly long legs running from skirt hem to black stiletto was something John would be seeing in his dreams for the foreseeable future.

“You think it was trans panic?” he asked, mostly to have something to say. “Her date didn’t know she was transgender and freaked out in a homophobic rage?”

Sherlock frowned. “It’s possible,” he said, “but unlikely. Not the first date, remember. And although she had a relatively androgynous bone structure and build, even with long hair and makeup she probably wouldn’t have struck passers-by as a cis woman. Too tall, for one.”

“Her date might have thought law enforcement would assume that, though.”

A nod. “Hence the body dump.” Sherlock looked down at his dress and grimaced. “I thought about using some fake blood for veracity, but I figured you would object to the cleaning involved afterward.”

“You would be right.”

“So. Go about disguising me as a dead cis man instead of a dead trans woman.”

John still hesitated. “You realize asking me to strip you naked and haul you off to a dirty alley isn’t generally a thing flatmates _or_ friends do, right?”

Sherlock’s eyes locked onto his. “Yes,” he said quietly. “So it’s a good thing we’re more than either of those descriptors.”

_Isn’t that the fucking truth._ Sherlock made him question a lot of things about himself. Having some goddamn boundaries, for one, but also where the line between _friend_ and _platonic crush_ lay. Or, well, not entirely platonic anymore, although not from John’s lack of trying. It’s not like he could help what he dreamed about at night.

“John?”

“Sorry.” He refocused on Sherlock’s prone form. “You sure she was wearing a dress?”

Sherlock shrugged one bare shoulder. “No, but either a dress or a skirt seems likely.”

“Okay then.” And John started to undo the straps on Sherlock’s shoes.

_Fuck. Me._

At least life with Sherlock meant he was never bored.


	2. Chapter 2

John had never undressed a corpse before. It was surprisingly difficult--and not just because Sherlock was watching him steadily the entire time.

“You’re taller than she was,” he commented as he hauled Sherlock to a sitting position. “Think that makes a difference here? Or my height compared to her date’s?”

Sherlock huffed. “Probably, but we can’t replicate _everything._ I merely need to know what the primary difficulties would be, and if it’s possible for you to remove the obvious feminine signifiers without leaving additional evidence of your attempts behind.” He let his arms flop heavily and started listing to the right, causing John to have to re-adjust his grip around the man’s skinny torso. “These are the clothes I had, so obviously an approximation.”

John shifted his grip again and tried desperately not to stare down Sherlock’s cleavage. He _really_ didn’t want to ask why Sherlock kept a lacy black bra and knickers set hidden somewhere in his bedroom, but they fit him well. The bright blue flannels wadded in the cups of the brassiere looked ridiculous… and surprisingly sexy. The whole combo was sexy, which is not something John had ever thought he’d say about his flatmate. Well, never thought he’d admit. Sherlock exuded an effortless sexuality when it benefitted him. 

“So, um.” John cleared his throat. “You’d be bleeding all over the place, including on me. Definitely on the floor. I think it’s safe to say your dress would be ruined--the bra too, probably. Maybe not skirt or knickers, depending on how you fell. The only way I can see getting you out of your clothes is holding you upright in my lap like this. Wouldn’t work as well if your skirt were longer, but…” He hitched Sherlock up from the ground for a moment, tugging the hem of the pale blue sundress out from under his arse before lowering him again. Sherlock was letting his body go completely limp, which left the back of his head lolling on John’s shoulder and his breath delicately fanning John’s ear. “That’s the first step, then.”

“Hmmm.” Sherlock let his temple press against John’s jaw. “Doable so far.”

“It’s June,” John continued, “meaning there’s a good chance she really was wearing a sundress. Summer colors tend to be lighter, so the bloodstains would be obvious. And she _wasn’t_ wearing black underneath them.”

“How do you know?”

John’s laugh turned into a groan as the movement shifted Sherlock’s position in his lap. He rather suspected he was at least partially hard, which would be a Terribly Not Good thing for the detective to notice in the current situation. “The fact that I can see your bra and knickers through the fabric of your dress, mostly. Not a look most people go for.”

Sherlock hummed thoughtfully again. “Blood shows up on everything, then. Making it easier for him to be thorough when cleaning her off at the scene.”

“Speaking of easier…” John wasn’t making much headway getting the lanky git undressed without a lick of help from the git in question, so he reached up over their heads to the desk and felt around until he found the pair of scissors Sherlock was not to remove upon pain of death. “If I were in a hurry, I’d just cut her bloody clothes off.”

“Do it,” Sherlock demanded. Then twisted himself around enough to make eye contact. “Yes, I’m serious. I value your insight. Please, go ahead.”

_Fuck._ John slowly lowered Sherlock’s unresisting form to the ground again, then straddled his thighs and lifted the hem of his skirt. “You sure?”

Sherlock merely glared at him in a way dead women couldn’t.

“Right. Here goes.”

For only requiring such a small action, the sight of the sundress peeling back in two halves and revealing Sherlock’s overstuffed lacy knickers was certainly having a large effect on John’s cock. The lace wasn’t doing much to hide the fact that the situation was having a biological effect on the detective just as much as it was on John. The longer he stared, the more Sherlock’s prick took an interest in the proceedings. John only realized he was licking his lips and blatantly ogling when Sherlock cleared his throat.

“Sorry.” John quickly and efficiently ran the scissors up the rest of the bodice, revealing a pale stomach and lean abdominal muscles and then a brand-new view of the lacy bra. Even the flannels jammed in the cups didn’t detract from the overall effect. Sherlock wasn’t particularly hirsute, so the black lace stood out starkly against pale skin. John swallowed hard.

“Never took you for a necrophile,” Sherlock murmured.

_Crap._ Clearly their respective current positions didn’t hide much. “You’re… not exactly dead,” John countered. “Very much alive, as a matter of fact.”

“Also not female.”

John shrugged. “Details.”

“Most heterosexual men are more interested in the contents of a brassiere than—”

“Sherlock.” John closed his eyes and breathed out carefully. _I’m making an idiot of myself._ “I’m not exactly heterosexual either. Sorry if that messes up your deductions. I’m not usually interested in cis men, true, but that doesn’t mean I only like cisgender women. You’ve thrown me for a bit of a loop here. And I’m only saying it this plainly because if I don’t, I know you’ll disappear into that mind palace of yours chasing increasingly outrageous theories. It’s really not that complicated.”

Sherlock gaped at him.

“Does it make you uncomfortable to learn that I’m not as straight as you thought?” It would kill him to face Sherlock’s censure, if so, but John had gotten used to pickled body parts in the fridge and mold samples in the loo. Sherlock could bloody well get used to the idea of John occasionally liking his partners--female or not--to have a dick. _It’s not like I’m the only man to have ever lusted after him…_

“You astound me, John,” Sherlock said quietly. “How do you always have another layer I’d never noticed before?”

His tone implied John was unique in that regard. John fought back a flush of pride. “That’s what best friends are like, I suppose. You see parts of each other you’d never show to anyone else.”

“You--you think of me as your best friend?” 

“Of course I do,” John answered immediately. “Have since ‘Afghanistan or Iraq,’ honestly.”

“And…” Sherlock’s gaze seemed to have settled somewhere in the vicinity of John’s sternum, but then he looked up and John was hooked in that verdigris stare once more. “I don’t know how to do this,” Sherlock confessed. “I’ve never had a friend before, much less a best friend. I want to be honest with you but I’m not sure I can put the truth into words. I… care deeply for you. I cannot contemplate functioning without you by my side. You have become my cocaine, John. And I don’t know what to do.”

“That was all nice and romantic until you got to the ‘cocaine’ bit,” John replied drily. “Drugs probably shouldn’t be to go-to analogy for a healthy relationship.”

Sherlock brightened. “Are we in a romantic relationship, then?”

“Um.” _How the fuck do I answer that one?_ “Functionally, I suppose? I know you don’t consider physical intimacy to be ‘your area’--”

“It hasn’t been in the past,” Sherlock interrupted. “I’ve never bothered to gather much data on the subject. But I think… John, if you’re amenable, I’d like to try.”

The man was lying on the floor between John’s legs in a sundress slit hem to collar, perfect hair mussed from his head lolling against John’s shoulder. Wearing a fuck-me set of knickers with his knob peeking out. Hairy legs leading down to delicate stilettos. And John had never been more turned on in his _life_.

“Just to clarify,” John said, “because I want to make sure I have this right. You can’t figure me out in one go so you’re attracted to me. Romantically and/or sexually. And you want to… what?”

Sherlock reached up and brushed his fingertips over the line of John’s jaw. “I want you to show me what I’ve been missing,” he said in a low tone. “Because I didn’t believe I _was _missing anything until it was you.”


End file.
